Emergency "save Lough Neagh" protest to take place this week

An emergency rally against Stormont's failure to address the ongoing ecological crisis at Lough Neagh is set to take place in Antrim this week – with protesters meeting at the Finn McCool statue on the shores of the lough at 6pm this Thursday, August 27.

"The Stormont Executive enacted the greedy policy that led to this disaster, and they have taken little to no action to undo their harm," the Save Lough Neagh campaigners stated on social media. "Pollution continues to flow into Lough Neagh without consequence.

"Factory farms are being proposed around Lough Neagh that threaten small farmers and only serve to create profit from export for giant corporations.

"We say no more to greed that runs our system. We need radical change to the way our environment and drinking water is treated."

Last weekend, two swans were saved by emergency services, after becoming stuck in Lough Neagh's blue-green algae.

"People are rightly disgusted by what they are seeing unfold on the lough every day," People Before Profit's Mid Ulster brand said, in response to widely shared images of birds trapped in "the toxic sludge."

"These scenes are not natural, or an accident. They show the scale of the ecological disaster unfolding in our biggest source of drinking water.

"Our waterways did not pollute themselves," PBP Mid Ulster continue. "The Stormont Exec and UFU oversaw the implementation of 'Going For Growth'. A strategy to rapidly increase agricultural profits for export. This greed has allowed our waterways to be poisoned, while intensive agriculture and factory farming continue to pour pollution into the waterways that feed it.

"We need serious public investment to restore Lough Neagh, to tackle pollution at its source and properly fund our water infrastructure... Water is a basic right, not a commodity. Lough Neagh is not a corporate dumping ground."

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